


This Is the Last Time

by jenish (phizzle)



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-14
Updated: 2006-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 02:24:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzle/pseuds/jenish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Dana.</p>
    </blockquote>





	This Is the Last Time

**Author's Note:**

> For Dana.

Pippin had his arms around Merry. Merry's head was tilted, cheek resting on Pippin's hair. (Merry really was the taller, no matter what Pippin might say.)

Sam stood a little way apart from them, still watching the horizon. The sun was sinking, staining the water in one long spill of deep light. Sam blinked, but still he looked, still he watched the water.

Merry watched the tiny crests of the waves. Pippin watched the rise and fall of Merry's waistcoat, sumptuous material out and in. He closed his eyes and listened for a heartbeat. (One heartbeat to hear, where once there had been two – and then one, but then, oh then, two again.)

_You left_, he wanted to say to Frodo, but what more was there to say to that? Perhaps it would be all right in the morning. Perhaps they would return to the Shire and it wouldn't feel one hobbit the emptier. (Just as it has for months, even when the count of heads was the same.) Perhaps they would ride when the sun had set its last.

The stars came out, and none of them spoke. They rode home, and Pippin heard every clop of his pony's hooves on the road.

_Do you think he'll be all right, where he's going?_ he wanted to ask, but how would any of them know? Frodo was with Gandalf, and Galadriel, and Elrond, and Bilbo, and that should be enough for all of them. Frodo would be fine. (Frodo would not be here, with him and Merry, but Frodo would be fine. And he and Merry can get on without their cousin, but oh, Pippin felt one last fleeting longing for the days when they didn't have to.)


End file.
